Society would have to enact “unprecedented” changes to how it consumes energy, travels and builds to meet a lower global warming target or it risks increases in heat waves, flood-causing storms and the chances of drought in some regions as well as the loss of species, a U.N. report said on Monday. Keeping the Earth’s temperature rise to only 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) rather than the 2C target agreed to at the Paris Agreement talks in 2015, would have “clear benefits to people and natural ecosystems,” the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said on Monday in a statement announcing the report’s release. “There were doubts if we would be able to differentiate impacts set at 1.5C and that came so clearly. Even the scientists were surprised to see how much science was already there and how much they could really differentiate and how great are the benefits of limiting global warming at 1.5 compared to 2,” said for Reuters Thelma Krug, vice-chair of the IPCC.

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Nature makes the rules. Science has given us the rule book and it says we don't respect nature and rules. If we can't accept that fact and learn to control ourselves, nature will show us the door

Go ahead and sound the alarm as much as they want, there is no real will in most of the world to make the sacrifices required to stop the rise. Not here in the US, nor in China or India. The Europeans talk a good game but they mostly don’t implement what they try for, because the policy makers are the unelected Brussels bureaucrats and they can’t get national parliaments to actually implement most of the changes. Vicious circle.

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I live in Switzerland and here I can feel the climate changing. Summers now are warmer and last longer than when I was a child. In winter there are less days with snowfall and low altitude ski resorts are closing for lack of snow. In the Alps, glaciers are melting and massive rock slides are more frequent due to the melting permafrost.

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The first issue isn’t whether we are experiencing significant climate change. We are. Neither is it whether the earth has done so over the millenia. It has. The issue is whether the unprecedented rate of climate change we are experiencing, which happens to correlate with the increase in the extent of CO2 and methane in the atmosphere, is significantly related to human activity, including the use of fossil fuel for energy for us to consider trying to do something about that. 97% of scientists agree that it is. Less than 1% say it is not, and about 2% are not convinced either way. If the 97% are right and we do nothing, we would be taking the risk that our children, grandchildren and future generations could be subjected to far worse weather events, including extreme droughts, dislocation and migration, severe storms, massive flooding, loss of life, destruction and more migration and loss of low lying communities and territories. If the 1% are right and we take action now, we might end up paying as much as 10% more for energy, but we would create 100,000’s of thousands of new energy related jobs and provide an incentive for private enterprise to find even more cost effective ways to produce energy from other than fossil fuels. Now to be fair, we will never know for sure how much less worse the weather events will be because we took those actions. Most likely, no matter what we do now, those events will continue to get worse if the 97% are right because it will take many years before things will begin to get better, and that depends upon the steps that we and others around the world are willing to take.

The second issue is not which countries are the largest emitters today of greenhouse gasses. The problem is the accummulation of greenhouse gasses over many years. Most of that has come from the industrialized nations of western Europe and the US. That is why it is only fair that those nations take the lead. While China emits more greenhouse gases in total today, their per capita contribution is still much less, and on a per capita basis they have accounted for only a vey small fraction of the cumulation of greenhouse gases that our economy has contributed to get to the point we are at today. The same is even more true of less developed countries. Given the fast growing demand China faces for more energy, China is taking more steps today than we are to minimize their dependency on fossil fuels. That doesn’t mean they aren’t continuing to add coal plants, but that they are offsetting that with more hydroenergy, solar, wind and conservation measures. We cannot expect the second and third world countries to be able to match the US and western Europe in cutting down the amount of greenhouse gases they emit because they are still in the early stages of developmnt that require substantial overall increases in energy production. It is not fair to say to those countries that they don’t get to use cheap coal to help provide energy, because we have already used so much that the atmosphere can’t handle the additional carbon, unless the developed countries are willing to offset their additional cost of alternative sources of energy. Yes, all of this will add up to a significant expense, but overall probably less than the recent tax cut for corporations and those with higher incomes. Which is more important?

The issue is whether the unprecedented rate of climate change we are experiencing, which happens to correlate with the increase in the extent of CO2 and methane in the atmosphere, is significantly related to human activity, including the use of fossil fuel for energy for us to consider trying to do something about that. 97% of scientist﻿s agree that it is.

97% ...

On the contrary, 31,487 American scientists agree that man-made global warming has absolutely no convincing evidence to support it: http://petitionproject.org/

First, I'd like to point out that 31,000+ scientists is a heck of a lot of scientists, especially considering they are only including US scientists on this petition. Secondly, all of these 31k scientists claim that there is not a shred of convincing evidence to support man-made climate change... Not. A. Shred. I'd like to point out that ZERO evidence is a very substantial claim.

More over, if I have to pick between a giant block of 31,000 people or some random "poll" that makes some very questionable claim about some random scientists who may or may not exist...well...

...I think we have experience with how easy it is to manipulate polls...

As evidence, I give you this:

https://www.270towin.com/2016-election-forecast-predictions/

Every single poll said Clinton would be the clear and unquestionable winner, with the poll that had the most 'certainty' giving Clinton a 323 to 197 victory.

On the contrary, 31,487 American scientists agree that man-made global warming has absolutely no convincing evidence to support it: http://petitionproject.org/

First, I'd like to point out that 31,000+ scientists is a heck of a lot of scientists, especially considering they are only including US scientists on this petition. Secondly, all of these 31k scientists claim that there is not a shred of convincing evidence to support man-made climate change... Not. A. Shred. I'd like to point out that ZERO evidence is a very substantial claim.

More over, if I have to pick between a giant block of 31,000 people or some random "poll" that makes some very questionable claim about some random scientists who may or may not exist...well...

...I think we have experience with how easy it is to manipulate polls...

Anyone upset by my views? Then by all means, prove me wrong with independent, verifiable facts. You know, like actual science - with results that are able to be independently replicated and verified....

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No matter who is right, it will be a hard sell in the U.S. if you can't get your argument past your version of future evolution vs creationism ("Now to be fair, we will never know for sure how much less worse the weather events will be because we took those actions." and the claim that the man made additions are the culprit vs normal evolution of the earth, no matter how destructive either is).

It will simply continue to be a hard sell if you can't put the evidence in front of everyone's eyes, now, while we're still alive. Data interpretations and projections based on those interpretations aren't good enough for most people, especially when those proposals, when put into practice in the past, have cost such extreme amounts of family's budgets for benefits that MIGHT help people after we're dead and gone.

Another example: Religion is very important to a large swath of the U.S., when it suits them, but if you want to debate evolution vs creationism you will have difficulty (see the Scopes Trial).

People are very informed in this day and age, and part of that includes the knowledge that if someone tells us of the death of 500 people and this is the reason: you'd better have irrefutable evidence or else we also believe that another pathologist could look at the evidence and tell us the deaths could have been attributable to another cause or causes.

Finally, I don't think there is one person on this forum that is battling against renewable energy. We may not have faith in it, but that is up to you guys. If we haven't come around to your way of thinking that doesn't mean I'm an idiot, or anyone else either, it simply means you haven't made your case effectively, yet. Go back and bring us another proposal, but make sure it doesn't either waste our time or hit our wallets, especially if the only benefits you can point to will become apparent long after we're dead (that's the standby argument for how anything we can't see is true: Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, God, Tooth Fairy, etc.).

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It's amasing how cherry picking data can show a totally different reality than the one we live in. The reality is the only times in earths past history when temperatures have so rapidly changed is when a massive event happens, which none have recently. The worlds troposphere is warming, unusual weather events are occurring more and are larger, oceans are rising, environments are changing. Yes some places will see cooler weather, more snow but it's the large picture that counts, the difference between weather and climate.

It reminds me of flat earthers that jump through all sorts of mental hoops, ignoring anything that they don't like.

Yes we would probably be heading into another ice age slowly if humans hadn't starting playing with the global environment, agriculture changed things starting thousands of years ago. But know rather than just halting it we are supper charging the climates thermostat which is a real dumb arse thing to do. It's incredible how many millions have been poured into this FUD and shameful.

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On the contrary, 31,487 American scientists agree that man-made global warming has absolutely no convincing evidence to support it: http://petitionproject.org/

First, I'd like to point out that 31,000+ scientists is a heck of a lot of scientists, especially considering they are only including US scientists on this petition. Secondly, all of these 31k scientists claim that there is not a shred of convincing evidence to support man-made climate change... Not. A. Shred. I'd like to point out that ZERO evidence is a very substantial claim.

31k really isn't a great many scientists, even just considering the US...

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d16/tables/dt16_318.20.asp

Data above from the NCES show that there have been 1.426 million graduates in 'Natural Sciences and Mathematics' and 1.563 million in 'Computer Sciences and Engeneering' between 1970 and 2015. (Total is 2.989 mill)

(I counted only the Bachelor's to avoid double counting people - the requirements of the petition project are simply that a signatory has a Bachelor or higher in a scientific degree - they include engineering and comp science in this!)

This puts the 31,487 signatories at only 1.05% of US scientists.

On top of that the majority of scientists signing are in irrelevant fields - only 112 in Atmospheric Science and 39 in Climatology!

9,833 are Engineers for goodness sake, and 3,046 are doctors - which makes sense when you note that the "research paper" the petition quotes prominently on the website is published in, wait for it, The Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons!

Being a climate skeptic to me is like the people defending smoking as healthy in the 50's - it's not bad for you why would it be, ain't that right Jimmy * Jimmy takes a big drag, everyone laughs *, how preposterous, meanwhile the tobacco companies count their profits! Well smoking isn't good for your health and humans are fucking the planet.

A research analyst at Swiss investment bank UBS believes the cost ofenergy renewablescould be so near to zero by 2030 “it will effectively be free,” according to a projections published on Monday. If renewables could soon be cheaper than all the alternative energy sources, and that this “is great news for the planet, and probably also for the economy.”

The analysis, published in theFinancial Times, explains that solar andwind farms are getting bigger, and that the potential of this sort of cheap,green energyis far-reaching and will only get cheaper. “In 2010, using solar power to boil your kettle would have cost you about £0.03,” the analyst writes inFT. “By 2020, according to estimates by our research team at UBS, the cost will have fallen to half a penny.” And just ten years later, the costs will be so minuscule, it will practically be free.